


21 Guns

by RemyCampbell



Category: Les Miserables
Genre: Grantaire musing, Green Day - Freeform, Happy birthday Victor Hugo, M/M, Sad R is sad, Songfic, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemyCampbell/pseuds/RemyCampbell
Summary: A song fic of Grantaire’s musings, set to Green Day’s “21 Guns”. Reposted from Fanfiction in honor of Victor Hugo’s birthday.





	21 Guns

**Hello everyone! I wrote this piece a few years ago and posted it on Fanfiction. I’m reposting it here today in honor of Victor Hugo’s birthday.**

**This is just some typical Grantaire-ian musings. But I've set his thoughts to a song. This piece is a songfic to Green Day's "21 Guns".**   
**Now, let me briefly explain. I did not just pick this song because it worked. This song has always been representative of Grantaire to me. Every time I hear it, I cry- because I am crying for Grantaire. I want other people to see where I'm coming from with this comparison. So here it is, typed out and put on the internet.**

**I really recommend listening to the song before or while reading this. It is a wonderful piece of music.**   
**Please let me know your thoughts after reading.**

**Thank you, and remember to celebrate the birthday of the greatest author known to man.**  
==============================

_**Do you know what's worth fighting for,** _   
_**When it's not worth dying for?** _

Is it really worth it, Enjolras? This brilliant vision you have of the future?

  
Is the republic worth handing out leaflets and making the government angry? Probably. Even I'll admit to that.

  
But is it worth tearing up the paving stones and getting shot? You aren't really going to change anything, you know. Why throw your life away?

_**Does it take your breath away** _   
_**And you feel yourself suffocating?** _

Lately I have found the atmosphere of this back room stifling. Stifling the many possibilities of these young men who will soon be dead.

Your words press on my chest, oh Great One, trying to fight their way through to my spirit. I feel choked listening to them, but I can't tell whether it is your absurd faith or my fears that are suffocating me.

  
**_Does the pain weigh out the pride?_ **

  
Why do I subject myself to the moral agony of coming here? Just to see your beautiful face and hear your beautiful words?

  
**_And you look for a place to hide?_ **

  
Sometimes I wonder if you're worth it. I run away from your piercing stare and foolish dreams, straight into the arms of my green faerie. I tell myself that she would never hurt me, that she understands why some things are just too painful to contemplate.

  
She lets me hide from these things I cannot think about, from my own iniquity, from your beautiful blue eyes, sparking with determination.

  
**_Did someone break your heart inside?  
You're in ruins_ **

  
Those harsh words you casually toss my way each meeting? They actually do hurt, you know. I don't want you to think I'm a wastrel or a useless drunkard.

  
I hear how you praise Combeferre and Joly and everyone else for their great works on behalf of the Republic. I want to do the things they do, so that for just one night you will say "Well done, Grantaire" instead of "Shut up, Winecask".

****_One, 21 guns  
Lay down your arms  
Give up the fight_

  
I have no time to fight a war in the streets. I am too busy fighting the war in my head. I don't want to do this anymore. I cannot choose between the hope you have instilled in me and the despair this world has taught me.

  
****_One, 21 guns  
Throw up your arms into the sky,  
You and I_

  
I want to surrender. I want to allow your beliefs to consume me. I want to fall into a bottle of absinthe and never come out. I want to let someone else make decisions for me because I cannot bring myself to crawl out of this dimly lit corner and make them for myself.

  
**_When you're at the end of the road  
And you lost all sense of control_ **

  
The revolution you are planning is like a boulder rolling down a great hill. It picks up speed each day, growing ever more unwieldy and dangerous. I cannot stop it. I cannot escape from its path. I cannot save you from being crushed beneath it.

  
**_And your thoughts have taken their toll_ **

  
When I try to voice these concerns, you do not listen. Perhaps it is because I am drunk and the arguments come out as rambling metaphors. Perhaps it is because you do not wish to hear. You want the people of France to be free to express themselves, yet every time I speak my mind to you, your dislike of me increases.

  
**_When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul_ **

  
My soul wishes to believe in this future you have imagined for us all. It is my mind that makes me what you call "cynical" and others may call "smart". I can add up the numbers of National Guardsmen and compare that to the amount of men you plan on bringing to the barricade. I look at their resources and ours; I see the hold they have on the minds of the people, through their artfully crafted propaganda and their strict laws.

  
We cannot win.

  
**_Your faith walks on broken glass_ **

  
You tell me all the time that I do not belong here with you, for I believe in nothing. For once, the unshakeable Apollo is wrong. I do not believe that we can win this insurrection. But I believe that the world needs change and the people who are strong enough to fight for that change should try. I believe in you.

  
**_And the hangover doesn't pass_ **

  
You know, Apollo, there is something that you and I agree upon. We both consider me an utter waste of space. I am too much of a coward to live without hope, so I come to these meetings, wishing to gain strength from your energy. Yet at the same time, I cannot tear myself from the bottle that washes away my fear even as it saps away my life.

  
**_Nothing's ever built to last  
You're in ruins._ **

  
This government that you loathe so much will one day fall. But so will your beloved republic. You will die with a bullet through your heroic breast, unsung and unburied. I will depart this wretched life soon after, dead in some filthy gutter with nothing but alcohol running through my veins. I will not be sorry.

  
**_One, 21 guns_  
Lay down your arms  
Give up the fight  
One, 21 guns  
Throw up your arms into the sky,  
You and I**

**__  
Did you try to live on your own  
When you burned down the house and home?  
Did you stand too close to the fire?  
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone**

  
Why do I bother? Why do I waste my time trying to soften the heart of a man with no feelings?

  
You are Apollo, a radiant god suspended so far above men that all we can hope to do is kiss your feet as you float above us. 

You are a marble statue, unmoving in your position against the current regime, unyielding in your ideals freedom and liberty. Unimpressed by the pathetic attempts of your most loyal follower to get a bit of positive attention from you.

  
Well, forgive me, great Apollo. I can't be what you want me to be. And you can't be anything but a symbol of revolution. No one will hold you- they would be burned by the fire of truth burning within you. No one will cry for you- they would only cry for the loss of the freedom you promised them. I am so sorry.

  
**_When it's time to live and let die_ **

  
I have to let you do this. You will fight and you will die and I will watch helplessly from my seat in the back of the café.

  
**_And you can't get another try_ **

  
Perhaps, in another lifetime, I could have been stronger. I could have stood by your side and died for what you believe in. For what I so badly wish I could believe in, too.

  
**_Something inside this heart has died  
You're in ruins._ **

  
You made me believe in something, Enjolras. Congratulations. That is better than what anyone else has managed to accomplish with me. But I believe in the wrong things and I am not strong enough.

  
****_One, 21 guns  
Lay down your arms  
Give up the fight_

  
I suppose it would be a waste of breath to tell you to drop this whole thing and run away? We could leave the country and go somewhere where you will be satisfied with society. (Does such a place exist?)

  
**_One, 21 guns  
Throw up your arms into the sky_ **

  
You are not a prophet. The gods have not labeled you as the one to bring liberty to France. Why must this be your battle to fight?

  
****_One, 21 guns  
Lay down your arms  
Give up the fight_

  
Shut up, Winecask. You do not need to tell me these words; I can say them perfectly well to myself.

  
Of course this is your battle. This is your battle because you believe in it. I cannot discourage you from it and I should not want to. You have a future beyond this dusty back room. It will all end quite soon in a spray of bullets and shouts for freedom, but that ending will not be in vain.

  
If one man hears your cry and carries it on to the next barricade, if one child is taught to dream of freedom instead of accept their unfair place in society, you will have achieved a victory.

  
You will achieve it. And when the world is truly free, decades from now- or centuries- someone will say that it was due to the great acts of this man and that man and on and on… and Enjolras.

  
**_One, 21 guns  
Throw up your arms into the sky,_ **

  
You already have won, great Apollo. You have caused enormous change right here in this little café. You took the most hopeless cynic, a drunken waste of space, and turned him into a believer.

  
I'm not quite sure what I believe in, but I know I believe in something better than this. And I believe in you.  
I will stand beside you at the barricades. In our last moments, I will look into your unflinching eyes and know that we have done the right thing. I will not be afraid.

  
I will die at your feet and we will be thrown into a mass grave together, side by side.

  
The oppressed people of this nation will whisper our names as they plan their next rally for freedom.

  
We can take this step toward liberty and make it count. Together, we will fight. The hero and his follower. The determined visionary and the drunkard.

  
**_You and I._ **

  
You and I.

====================

**Happy birthday, Monsieur.**

 


End file.
